3rd October 2012

My son was overjoyed to recently add another item to his Don Bradman collection: A 20 cent piece showing “The Don” in a full flight cover-drive. The Don is famous for many things, but especially for his batting average of 99.94. The story goes that he only had to score 4 runs in his last game to achieve the seemingly perfect 100, but was out without scoring.

It is not uncommon for people to assess their score in moral living at around 99.94 out of 100, and to believe that God would be a bit tough to disown anyone who falls short by a lousy 0.06. But the Bible presents a different statistic. When it says that we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), it does not mean that we miss the mark set by God by just a small margin. The Bible-word ‘to fall short’ is an archery term, and means to completely miss the target. In cricket-talk, it’s like getting a batting average of zero.

We regularly make two mistakes in our religious thinking. One is to overestimate our moral standing, and to rate our moral living too highly, and the other is to underestimate God’s ability to forgive our shortcomings. However the forgiveness of God cannot be found while we score our living at just shy of perfect. But once we understand our true score, then we can begin to understand the powerful healing grace of God. We are always wiser to flip the coin and look to the Head and not at the tail.